


Freefall

by ladyoflilacs



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Smut, takes place during Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-03 14:28:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17285816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyoflilacs/pseuds/ladyoflilacs
Summary: A voice whispers to Harry in the still of the night, when he is on the verge of sleep and at his most vulnerable.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there. I started writing this story on ff.net back in 2011. Last year, I had a bit of a mental break and deleted all my work, with the exception of my co-written projects with the lovely [Ansketil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ansketil/pseuds/ansketil). I'm doing much better now and started writing again recently, though for a different fandom (I'm posting under the account [ohwise1ne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohwise1ne/pseuds/ohwise1ne/works)). But I thought I would reupload this story here for posterity. 
> 
> It's nearly 200,000 words and 31 chapters.

Harry couldn't sleep.

His eyes were burning with exhaustion as he struggled to make sense of the words before him. A large, dusty tome lay open in front of him on the kitchen table in Number 12, Grimmauld Place, and his head rested heavily against his hand. Every few minutes, he would feel his eyelids begin to droop, his head slowly growing heavier, until his forehead would nearly slip off of his hand and he would be jolted back to reality.

Harry dragged his gaze to the clock above the stove. It was past three in the morning. Running a hand over his face, the boy sighed and returned his attention to the book.

He knew, however, that it wasn't a passionate interest in _A Magical History: 125 BC-650 AD_ that was keeping him from his bed tonight.

Harry _wouldn't_ sleep.

He was already long accustomed to the dreams, snippets of Voldemort's life, desires, annoyances. He had participated in some rather disastrous Occlumency lessons during his fifth year in an attempt to stop them, but his strong dislike of Severus Snape and his immense difficulty with the subject prevented him from advancing very far in the brief course of his lessons.

And after the abrupt conclusion of his lessons with Snape, Harry had never found himself worried about his inadequacy with the skill; there was no harm in the dreams if he didn't pay them any mind …

_(not like that time when he'd dreamt of Sirius and the Department of Mysteries and of screaming and blood and he had led his godfather right into Voldemort's trap and then Sirius had died and it was all his fault and)_

Harry paused and shook the flood of memories out of his mind, trying to bring his concentration back to the book in front of him. It still pained him to think of it; two years had passed, but the gaping hole that his godfather had left in his heart was still achingly raw. He wouldn't let it happen again, he told himself; the dreams wouldn't matter, they couldn't hurt anyone, as long as Harry didn't foolishly act on them again.

But it wasn't only dreams that he was having have trouble with now.

Harry's eyes began to feel heavy in his head once again, and the words on the pages seemed to be squirming away from his vision. Harry blinked groggily a few times, trying to bring the words back into focus, but they wouldn't stay still long enough for him to finish the sentence he had been reading. If only he could close his eyes for just … one … minute …

" _Harry …_ "

The boy sat up abruptly, eyes snapping open, suddenly wide awake. He looked around the kitchen, heart beating hard against his chest, and it was not for a few moments until he realized that his scar was prickling beneath his fingers.

There was no one there. And how was that possible? It had sounded as though someone had been standing directly behind him, lips at his ear, whispering his name as softly and clearly as though those two syllables held the most magic in the world.

Harry rubbed his forehead absentmindedly, as though the friction of his fingers could chase the prickling from his scar. He realized that his skin had erupted into goosebumps, and he removed his hand from his face to rub at his arms, trying to get rid of those, too.

The voice had first come to him three weeks ago, the first night after they had fled to Grimmauld Place.

He had been wrapped inside of a sleeping bag in the drawing room, eyes shut, feeling exhausted and troubled and afraid all at the same time. His mind was a mess of turmoil and fear, replaying behind his closed eyes the disastrous events of the wedding and all that had followed it over and over and over again. He knew the vast expectations that his friends had for him, the Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived, but he didn't know what he was supposed to do or how to do it, or even where to start looking. He was confused, and angry, and more scared than he had ever been in his entire life. And he had finally been drifting off to the sweet, promising escape of sleep when he'd heard a whisper, softly, from the dark, inner folds of his mind:

" _Harry."_

The sound of his name hadn't jarred him awake then, as it would three weeks later, but rather seemed to relax him further. He suddenly couldn't remember what it was he had been so upset about. He felt very comfortable, like he was sinking into a dark and smoky cloud …

" _Yes, that's it, Harry … relax."_

Wasn't there something familiar about that voice? But that should be a good thing, Harry thought to himself; if the voice was familiar to him, that meant he should trust it.

" _Yes, very good, Harry. Relax. It is such a heavy burden that you bear … and you must be very tired_."

He _was_ tired, so tired. He was on the precipice of sleep now, flirting with the edge of the dark abyss that was simply dreamless, painless, fearless night. He was so close …

And then he felt it. At first, it was like a gentle itch inside his skull, barely noticeable, barely there. Harry probably wouldn't have even been able to tell that it was there at all if he had been any closer to that cliff, if he had just taken one more step off of the edge into sleep.

But then the itch began to intensify slightly, a soft, vague nudging at the back of his mind—no, not a nudging, a _tugging_ , almost like … like

( _an extraction_ )

a memory being removed to watch in a Pensieve. But he had never removed a memory from his mind before … how could he dream about something he had never experienced? Unless …

Harry attempted to drag himself from the seduction of sleep, of this dark cloud enveloping his consciousness.

" _Harry._ "

There was a hint of something else to the voice now … annoyance? Anger?

" _I need you to tell me something, Harry ..."_

Something was wrong.

Harry began struggling now, eyes flickering madly behind his eyelids, but he was so _tired,_ wasn't he? How was he supposed to wake up, to face his friends and their expectations and the world, when he was just so _tired_? It would be so much

( _easier_ )

nicer to stay here, in bed, to step off of that cliff, to stay in this dark, warm space …

The voice seemed to come from very far away now, or was it just even closer?—muffled from the inner folds of his mind:

" _Where are you, Harry Potter_?"

( _no no no no no no no_ )

The blurry image of Grimmauld Place began to rise, unbidden, before his inner eye. Harry felt himself struggling, thrashing beneath his bedcovers somewhere else, in another world, as he tried desperately to push the image of the street from his thoughts. He couldn't think of the number, he couldn't; he wasn't completely sure why, but he knew that to think of the number of the house, to picture it in his mind—it would ruin everything—

( _no no no no no no NO_ _NO)_

" _Tell me where you are!_ "

"No!"

And suddenly Harry had been thrown back into the drawing room, and he was sitting up in his sleeping bag, drenched in a cold sweat, breathing hard and fast and his heart beating even faster. He ignored Ron and Hermione's frantic questions as he fumbled quickly for his wand and his glasses—he needed to see, he needed to make sure—

" _Lumos_!"

He stared around the drawing room, his breathing harsh, wand raised. He realized suddenly that he was shaking, his scar burning across his forehead.

There was no one else in the room; there was only Ron and Hermione, staring fearfully at him and clutching at their sleeping bags, the frightened expressions on their faces eerie in his wandlight.

And the voice had gone.


	2. Chapter 2

"We need a plan."

Hermione looked very serious over her bowl of porridge, eyebrows furrowed across her forehead. They weren't as bushy as they used to be, Harry noticed distractedly, and he was vaguely reminded of how pretty she had looked at the Yule Ball. That seemed like a million years ago now, an entirely different lifetime. Voldemort had still hardly been a thought in the back of anyone's head, nevermind a quite literal presence in his own.

"You think?" said Ron through a mouthful of eggs. Hermione shot him a reproachful look, and he paused to swallow. "But how the hell are we supposed to just waltz into the Ministry of Magic? They've got people looking for Harry everywhere."

Harry glanced up at the sound of his name. He was still sitting in the chair in which he had kept vigil all night long, and he was vaguely aware of a burning in his eyes.

" _Harry!_ " Hermione gasped, looking at him for the first time that morning. "What is wrong with your eyes, did you even get any sleep?"

"I … er," Harry mumbled, rubbing his eyes. "I woke up in the middle of the night, and I couldn't fall back asleep, 'cause I had a bad … er … a stomachache," he finished lamely.

Hermione frowned at him, and Harry wished dearly that she would save that particular expression for Ron's tendency to speak with a mouth full of food.

"Harry, you're having dreams about _him_ again, aren't you?" she said, her voice low, as though even the mention of the pronoun would draw Voldemort's attention to their kitchen table.

"No," Harry replied irritably, "I told you, I was feeling nauseous." He dropped his eyes to his own bowl of porridge, which had remained untouched since Hermione had placed it in front of him ten minutes earlier.

"I thought you said you had a stomachache?" Ron said, frowning, before Hermione shushed him. Harry shot a glare in his direction before returning his gaze to his porridge.

"Look, Harry, I know it's hard to talk about," Hermione began, and Harry restrained the urge to roll his eyes. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ron doing the same: this was a speech with which they were both quite familiar.

"… explain all the specifics, but I think that it's _very_ important that we start thinking about finding a way to further your studies in Occlumency," Hermione was saying, her tone concerned and insistent. "You really shouldn't be giving Voldemort such free access to your mind, he's already taken advantage of it before, and Dumbledore wouldn't have required you to—"

Hermione stopped mid-sentence when Ron kicked her under the table, and she realized quickly the mistake she had made—more of a double whammy, really—in her last sentence. Her mouth clicked shut audibly. Harry didn't see this; he was staring fixedly at his bowl of oatmeal, jaw clenched and emotion welling in his chest.

"Harry—" Hermione beckoned softly, her voice suddenly gentle.

"I'm going upstairs," Harry interrupted. He pushed his chair back and left the room before they could stop him, a painful knot tightening behind his navel. It was bad enough living back in Grimmauld Place again without Hermione constantly throwing

( _accusations harsh words bad memories_ )

reminders at him that Sirius' death had been his fault.

Miserable, Harry climbed the staircase up from the basement to the first floor, where he found himself back in the drawing room. His sleeping bag lay unused in the corner of the room; he had quietly left it there late last night when he was sure that his friends were asleep, so that he could sneak in peace down to the kitchen. Harry had been afraid to give Voldemort another opportunity to pick through his mind.

Now Harry found himself struggling to look anywhere but his sleeping bag. The pile of blankets in the corner looked extremely tempting given his dire lack of sleep, but Harry was determined to stay awake until he could no longer keep his eyes open.

Since the first night that Voldemort had invaded his semi-consciousness, Harry had found that nearly passing out from exhaustion kept his mind out of that ripe state of relaxed pre-slumber for as short of a time as possible. Admitting this to his friends, however, seemed out of the question for the time being: Harry didn't think he could stand listening to Hermione's scolding about his Occlumency lessons one more time.

Harry tore his tired eyes from his sleeping bag and turned instead to the other most prominent object in the room: the large tapestry hanging on the wall detailing the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black's lineage. He walked over to the wall, tracing the golden threads to the point on the tapestry where Sirius' name would have been had his mother not blasted it off many years ago.

And then, a memory flashed into his mind

( _of Sirius laughing as they tried everything possible to tug the cursed tapestry off of the wall, of the Permanent Sticking Charm keeping it there, of Sirius' smile, his barking laugh as he fondly recalled Harry's father, of a dirty mansion and a lonely man and a boy longing for love_ )

of Sirius. Harry remembered Sirius' strained expression as he described the different members of his pureblood family, the bitterness in his voice, his eyes.

For the short while ( _too short_ ) that Harry had known him, Sirius had never been happy. Sirius had spent thirteen years in a hellhole sucking out whatever happiness he had left—and now he would never have a chance at regaining that happiness.

Harry saw sudden movement out of the corner of his eye, and he grimaced, hoping that it wasn't Hermione coming to continue her lecture—or worse, Kreacher coming to mutter about how Harry was defiling the house with his presence. When he looked up, however, he realized that no one had come into the room; the source of the movement had come from a photograph laying on Hermione's sleeping bag. Curious, Harry walked a little closer to see it better, and was surprised when he saw himself waving up out of the picture.

Harry bent over and picked up the photograph from the sleeping bag, examining it. It was a photo taken of Dumbledore's Army from his fifth year, just before everyone had left for Christmas break. There he was, standing in the middle, with Ron and Hermione on either side of him; there was Neville, and Luna, and Seamus Finnigan, all waving cheerfully at the camera. Cho Chang stood to the left of Ron, throwing nervous, blushing glances in Harry's direction, and Ginny stood next to Cho, badly disguising the glare that she kept aiming at the girl beside her.

Ginny. Harry felt his chest constrict at the thought of his best friend's sister, and he suddenly wished that she was there with him now. Sighing, Harry slid down the wall to sit, staring at the picture with a longing so strong it was painful. He closed his eyes and pictured Ginny in his mind, her shockingly red hair, her bright hazel eyes, the wrinkle in her forehead when she found something amusing.

She was so beautiful, and Harry felt something in his chest squeeze with anxiety as he thought about her alone at Hogwarts, the war pressing up against the school gates.

Harry went to get up, determined to find another distraction, but found with a start that he was having a great deal of difficulty moving. In fact, it seemed as though his eyes were refusing to open at all.

Ginny's face would not leave his thoughts, Harry realized, and he felt his stomach plunge. Her eyes burned stronger in his mind, her hair redder, her smile growing to a point that was almost sickening.

And then, a whisper—soft, tender, almost familiar to him now:

" _Harry_."

Somewhere far away, Harry felt his body thrash involuntarily against the wall, distantly aware that his nails were biting into his palms—but that was in another world, another universe; here, there was only darkness, and Ginny's smile, and the soft whisper inside of his head.

" _Is that your lover, Harry? What a pretty little thing she is. Such a shame; she will have to die, too, you know_. _They all will, all for their brave little hero who will allow so many to die in his place._ "

It occurred to him that there was blood, now, that his nails had punctured his skin. He could not feel the stinging of his palms, though, only the burning of his scar, the twisting of his stomach as the smile on Ginny's face stretched wider, wider, almost inhuman now—

" _You know, she looks very much like your mother did, Harry. I wonder if she will cry when I kill her, too."_

Harry heard someone screaming somewhere, and his body writhed across the floor as he tried to do anything, everything, to remove Ginny's face from his mind, but it seemed to be fixed there, as if bound by a Permanent Sticking Charm of its own.

" _I will find her, Harry, and I will kill her. I will kill all of them_ , _like little pests. I will crush them with the heel of my foot, and then I will find you and I will kill you, too._ "

The sound of screaming seemed to be coming closer, and Harry realized that the screams were being torn from his own throat.

" _Now, tell me, Harry …"_

( _pain in his palms, pain on his forehead, Ginny's grinning face burning a gruesome image behind his eyes, and screaming, screaming, screaming_ )

" _Where are you?_ "

A shock of ice cold water hit his face, and then, with a deep, shuddering gasp, Harry's eyes flew wide open. In an instant, he had found himself back in the drawing room, soaked in water and sweat and blood, shaking and shivering and weeping. Hermione and Ron stood over him, their faces pale with fright. Hermione's wand was still dripping with water.

Harry stared unblinkingly at them, or past them, or through them. He was still shaking violently from the shock of the cold water, the sobs wracking his gut, the trauma of the entire experience.

And then his body, without consulting his mind first, suddenly gave in to the exhaustion that had seeped into his bones. With a soft whimper, Harry's eyes fluttered shut. Darkness engulfed him whole, and he descended into the cavernous expanse that was sleep.

The photograph of his closest friends lay crumpled and bloodied in his fist.


End file.
